Time to Regroup, Time to Recoup
Here’s hoping all the new leaders keep their eyes on the prize.
While I am very happy the Democrats have retaken the Congress and that the new Speaker of the House is a woman, I am, as with the District elections, adopting a wait and see attitude before I do the Happy Dance. The new majority needs to figure out a strategy for exiting Iraq as well as for stopping the gradual erosion of hard fought reproductive rights…and this is just where they have to start. The list of problems that have been created or further exacerbated, both nationally and internationally, in the past decade plus of movement to the right is so long it staggers me.
And while I am also thrilled at the possibility of actually becoming an enfranchised citizen of the United States while still living in the District of Columbia, I am not particularly happy about having to give another seat in the House to the ultra conservative Mormon Church in order to do so. I guess the lesson here is never forget that the patriarchy is still very much alive and well and never underestimate its tenacity. Combine that with my learned skepticism as to the ability and willingness of politicians to think outside their own egos to the greater good, or perhaps even distinguish their own ambition from the greater good, and you may understand my reticence to get particularly excited prematurely. So, I will send a thought and wish out to the goddess in all her manifest and invisible forms that the newly elected national politicians can find the ways and then stay the course.
I will add to that a thought and wish for the local elected officials, who say, among other things, they are all committed to fixing the District’s schools. But from the news so far it seems they might easily get involved with fighting each other about who will be in charge and how that might be accomplished rather than putting their own puffed up egos aside and thinking about how they all might work together to accomplish that. It’s enough to make a voter homicidal. I wish they had put on the ballot, “Which three egotistical male maniacs do you want to see mud wrestling?” So, here’s hoping we all didn’t schlep to the polls for nothing…and refrain from writing in Frida, the Caldwell’s cat, for Mayor…or at least City Council Chair.
While I am very happy the Democrats have retaken the Congress and that the new Speaker of the House is a woman, I am, as with the District elections, adopting a wait and see attitude before I do the Happy Dance. The new majority needs to figure out a strategy for exiting Iraq as well as for stopping the gradual erosion of hard fought reproductive rights…and this is just where they have to start. The list of problems that have been created or further exacerbated, both nationally and internationally, in the past decade plus of movement to the right is so long it staggers me.
And while I am also thrilled at the possibility of actually becoming an enfranchised citizen of the United States while still living in the District of Columbia, I am not particularly happy about having to give another seat in the House to the ultra conservative Mormon Church in order to do so. I guess the lesson here is never forget that the patriarchy is still very much alive and well and never underestimate its tenacity. Combine that with my learned skepticism as to the ability and willingness of politicians to think outside their own egos to the greater good, or perhaps even distinguish their own ambition from the greater good, and you may understand my reticence to get particularly excited prematurely. So, I will send a thought and wish out to the goddess in all her manifest and invisible forms that the newly elected national politicians can find the ways and then stay the course.
I will add to that a thought and wish for the local elected officials, who say, among other things, they are all committed to fixing the District’s schools. But from the news so far it seems they might easily get involved with fighting each other about who will be in charge and how that might be accomplished rather than putting their own puffed up egos aside and thinking about how they all might work together to accomplish that. It’s enough to make a voter homicidal. I wish they had put on the ballot, “Which three egotistical male maniacs do you want to see mud wrestling?” So, here’s hoping we all didn’t schlep to the polls for nothing…and refrain from writing in Frida, the Caldwell’s cat, for Mayor…or at least City Council Chair.
posted by pat at 8:16 AM
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